After his worthless father shows up to demand a fortune Huck has found, Huck escapes to Jackson's Island in the Mississippi River. From there, Huck and Jim, a fugitive slave, float down the river on a raft. They have several adventures and are joined by two men claiming to be the Duke of Bridgewater and the Dauphin of France, at which point things start to get a little hairy for our heroes.

A satire first and foremost, experienced readers tend to find it even more entertaining, and knowing a good deal of history doesn't hurt either. Huck Finn was revolutionary at the time for including a black slave as a main character. In doing so, though, it uses the words that were normal at the time, including "nigger" as a common description — which of course isn't common any more. The novel remains widely considered to be a pillar of American literature.

The book is in public domain, and the full text is available for free at Project Gutenberg.

Bowdlerize: An edition has recently been released with every incidence of the n-word changed to "slave". It creates several problems such as a free black man still being referred to as a slave ("free nigger" becomes "free slave"). In their piece on it, The Daily Show pointed out a 1955 TV adaptation that wrote Jim out entirely.

The Bus Came Back: Tom Sawyer has a minor role in the beginning of the story and then shows up again for a major role in the final act.

Chekhov's Gun: The corpse that Huck and Jim come across early on in their adventure is revealed at the end to have been Huck's father.

Complexity Addiction: Tom apparently suffers from this; his plan for freeing Jim is needlessly complicated and based on fiction he's read. Of course, it's later revealed that the whole rescue was pointless, since Jim was supposed to be a free man, and Tom knew it the whole time and was only having fun. But telling him that the moment he arrives would kill the potential of an epic prank.

Disc-One Final Boss: The Duke and the King start out as Huck and Tom's traveling companions, but they become antagonistic. Angry townspeople tar and feather them and run them out of town on a rail prior to the final act of the novel.

Disguised in Drag: At one point, Huck dresses as a girl to keep the townspeople from recognizing him.

Emo Teen: Emmeline Grangerford in a rare Unbuilt Trope example. Her death-obsessed and maudlin poetry and art was meant to be Twain's lampoon of the death-obsessed and maudlin poetry of the notoriously awful and now-forgotten 19th century American poet, Julia A. Moore (a.k.a., "the Sweet Singer of Michigan").

Even Evil Has Standards: When the King and the Duke are plotting to steal the inherited property of the orphaned Wilks sisters, whose rich uncle has just died, the Duke mentions to the King that he's having some moral qualms about stealing all the belongings besides money (i.e. their house and their slaves). The King assures him that the "property" will be returned to the family as soon as the townspeople realize they were impostors; i.e. after Duke & King have escaped with the loot. Thus, the only money the girls will be out is their uncle's gold stash; the rest of the con will only burn "all the fools in town" — which is the majority in any town, the King says.

Feuding Families: The Grangerfords and Shepardsons; Huck stops by just before the tipping point in their feud. He tries to have Buck Grangerford to explain why the two families came to be at each other's throats in the first place, but Buck admits that the exact reasons why are rather unclear and that no one actually knows which family offended the other one first.

First Love: Huck finds her, unrequited of course, in Mary Jane Wilks. Their last moments together make this obvious:

"'Good-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of you a many and a many a time, and I'll pray for you, too!'"—and she was gone. Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same—she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion—there warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty—and goodness, too—she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust."

Flanderization: Tom Sawyer in this book is defined by his love of adventure stories, which was only one aspect of his character in Tom Sawyer. (This gets even worse in the lesser-known later sequelsTom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective.)

Funetik Aksent: Literally everyone, including Huck in the narration. There's an author's note at the beginning pointing out that several different Funetik Aksents are being demonstrated, lest the reader think "that all these characters were attempting to talk alike and not succeeding."

Gaslighting: Tom insists they do this as part of his infamous and unnecessarily convoluted scheme to rescue Jim the "proper" way. He and Huck hide spoons while Aunt Sally counts them, and then replace them when she tries to re-count, as well as sending mysterious threatening messages.

The Duke and the King were punished by tarring and feathering and being ridden out of town on a rail. This means that they were stripped naked, covered in tar and feathers, and been paraded around town straddling a fresh-cut, splintery fence rail. To be fair, they completely deserved it.

Hero Antagonist: Tom Sawyer is hardly villainous, but he complicates Huck's plan to free Jim considerably by making them recreate numerous details that he read in books, adding many complications and challenges that did not exist before. It gets even worse when it turns out Tom knew Jim was free the whole time, but didn't bother telling anyone.

Honor Before Reason: The head of the Grangerford family thinks that ambushing your opponent, even when you're in a death feud that has been going on for decades, isn't what a gentleman should do. His opponents, the Shepherdsons, think differently. This may be the reason why they win at the end.

I'm Going to Hell for This: In a rare non-comedic example, Huck says this before tearing up a letter to Miss Watson to save Jim himself.

There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch. Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.

Innocent Bigot: Huck. Actually, practically every white person in the book, to some degree. Except the villainous ones, who are just ordinary bigots.

Lighter and Softer: The last chapters of the novel, which were written after a hiatus of several years, abandon the relative seriousness of the story until then and become exaggerated slapstick comedy.

Manly Tears: Huck spies Jim crying, thinking about his wife and child. Huck begins to realize that Jim is a real person with real emotions at that point.

No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Dauphin is loosely based on Emperor Norton, whom Mark Twain personally knew when he worked as a newspaperman in San Francisco.

Not So Different: Huck sees Jim crying one night over not knowing where his family was, and starts to realize that Jim has the same feelings white people do, and it's the start of his unlearning of everything he's been taught.

N-Word Privileges: Jim has them. But then, since this is pre-Civil War rural America, everyone has them.

One Riot, One Ranger: In this case, it's a criminal rather than a law enforcement official who acts this way - but the dialogue Twain chooses simply drips this attitude.

Colonel Sherburn: ...Your mistake is, that you didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man — Buck Harkness, there — and if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing.

Plot Hole / Retcon: Or something. The first chapter of Huck Finn states that Tom Sawyer was more or less accurate. Huck then spends the rest of the chapter recapping the ending of Tom Sawyer, only with a mind-boggling number of trivial details changed. Notably, over the course of about a week in-story, Tom Sawyer apparently forgets what ransom means and that he ever knew it. There are a fair number of other little differences.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Huck: What's ransom?

Tom: Money. You make 'em raise all they can off'n their friends...

sometime in the next few weeks, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,

Ben Rogers: Ransomed? What's that?

Tom: I don't know. But that's what they do.

Political Correctness Gone Mad: The book is scathingly anti-slavery, but is often banned from schools for supposed "racial insensitivity" because its characters are using 'the n-word'... in the American South of the 1830s. More information is available on the YMMV page.

Punny Name: A "granger" is a cattle rancher; cattle ranchers and sheepherders were old rivals in the 1800s, thus the Grangerfords and Shepardsons don't get along.

Reality Ensues: Tom's overly-complicated plan to make freeing Jim considerably harder than it has to be, including alerting his captors to their plan resulting in an armed posse 15 men strong arriving to stop them, ends with Tom getting shot in the calf, which leads to Jim being recaptured.

"Shaggy Dog" Story: Not the whole story, but the final act in which Huck and Tom plot to free Jim. Tom takes numerous tropes from prisoner stories he's read and adds them to their situation, unnecessarily making it more difficult. It turns out that he's doing all of this for fun, because he knows that Miss Watson passed away and emancipated Jim in her will.

Shaming the Mob: Colonel Sherburn calmly disperses an angry Lynch Mob with an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech, telling them (as it turns out, correctly) that they are all too cowardly to lynch him. However, this is made ambiguous by the fact that Sherburn definitely does not have the moral high ground; he had just shot and killed a man in cold blood in the middle of the street in broad daylight. Twain was not a fan of the old Southern code of justice.

Huck disguises himself as a girl but is ultimately discovered by a sharp-eyed old lady, who notices the way he threads a needle and catches a dropped ball of thread.

In the Disney film, he is caught after throwing a pot to hit a mouse, and nails it—a girl wouldn't know how to throw the thing.

Stockholm Syndrome: Discussed. When Tom and his gang are playing robbers, Tom mentions that if they capture any young women, they'll have to hold them in their cave and treat them nicely, and by and by they'll fall in love and never want to leave.

Tar and Feathers: The King and the Duke, later. Huck even feels pretty bad for them when he sees them being hauled out of town, fully feathered.

To Be Lawful or Good: Huck's main conflict is the story is whether to do what he's been told is good, that is follow the rules and the law, or to follow what his own awakening morals tells him is right. His speech stating 'All right, I'll go to hell' is him choosing to do what he thinks is right even though his community has confused what is lawful with what is good to the point he believes he's risking hell by freeing Jim from slavery.

Then Let Me Be Evil: Subverted and probably deconstructed. Huck's internal "All right, I'll go to Hell" speech is about him deciding that being "righteous" isn't worth it if a friend is going to suffer. That already puts his "evil" under suspicion, which becomes even more so in context: said friend is Jim, and said Hell-worthy act is refusing to send him back to slavery.

The Wicked Stage: Huck and Jim meet a two-man Shakespearean troupe. The guys are in town with "The Royal Nonesuch," and they turn out to be conmen. Their performance... didn't exactly meet with rave reviews.

Wrong Genre Savvy: Tom Sawyer, who, among other things, insists that Jim tunnel out of his prison with a spoon rather than unlocking the door and walking out.

You Are Worth Hell: A platonic example. Huck genuinely believes that he'll go to Hell for rescuing Jim, but decides he doesn't care.

You Can't Go Home Again: At the end, Huck reunites with Tom and returns to childlike scheming, just to drive home that it's time to get past all that.

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